By NICO SCAVELLA
Tribune Staff Reporter
nscavella@tribunemedia.net
A MAN seeking to challenge his 40 year sentence for murdering a retired 88-year-old Canadian physician on a Family Island three years ago will receive a court appointed lawyer for his appeal application.
Moses Morris stood before appellate Justices Jon Isaacs, Stella Crane-Scott and Milton Evans seeking to challenge his sentence of 39 years and nine months for fatally stabbing Dr Harry Geoffrey Harding on Long Island in 2015.
At first, the Simms, Long Island native maintained he would proceed without a lawyer, after presenting the appellate judges with written submissions concerning his appeal.
However, after acknowledging he had no money to pay for a lawyer himself, Morris agreed with Justice Isaacs’ suggestion that he should have a lawyer appointed to execute his appeal.
“I think that would be best,” Justice Isaacs said.
He subsequently ordered that Morris be assigned an attorney at the public’s expense, and adjourned the matter to March 22 for mention.
On March 11, 2016, Morris pleaded guilty to murdering Dr Harding and was sentenced to nearly 40 years in prison by Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson.
He was initially arraigned before then-deputy chief magistrate Andrew Forbes, now an acting Supreme Court judge, on one charge of murder stemming from the April 2, 2015 incident.
According to initial reports, shortly before noon on the day in question, police in Long Island received a report that a man had been found dead at his home in Clarence Town. When they arrived, they found the lifeless body of Dr Harding with multiple stab wounds in his body.
Dr Harding, who owned a vacation home in Long Island and regularly visited the island after purchasing the property in the 1960s, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Roger Thompson represents the Crown in the matter.
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